1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to apparatus for separating smaller particles and fines from larger particles in a particle stream being discharged from the end of a conveyor, for example for separating crumbs from tortilla chips, corn chips or potato chips being fed to a weighing and packaging apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally fines and crumbs produced by breakage during processing and handling of fragile salty snack food chips, such as tortilla chips, corn chips and potato chips, remain within the product stream and are bagged along with the unbroken pieces. Removing the crumbs and fines reduces the quantity of bagged product produced per unit weight of raw input.
However, crumbs or fines are generally undesirable in bagged particulate food snacks since they cannot be readily picked up by fingers. Often the crumbs or fines are thrown away where the quality of the snack food presented to guests or customers is important. A fragile snack food product with reduced crumb content is desirable.
Conventional screening or sieve apparatus can be employed to separate crumbs and fines from unbroken chips. However such equipment is generally quite expensive and subject to clogging by the irregular shaped broken pieces of the snack food pieces. Such prior art equipment will tend to slow down the production lines either by low throughput or down time to clear the screens and thus increase the inefficiency of the production line.
An object of the invention is to construct an efficient and inexpensive apparatus for separating smaller particles from larger particles in a particle stream being discharged from a conveyor.